“It would not become me to prejudge,”
said I, “but if the Advocate was your authority
he is fully possessed of my opinions.”

“I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case,”
he went on; “I am to appear under Prestongrange;
and from my study of the precognitions I can assure
you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of
Breck is manifest; and your testimony, in which you
admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment,
will certify his hanging.”

“It will be rather ill to hang him till you
catch him,” I observed. “And for
other matters I very willingly leave you to your own
impressions.”

“The Duke has been informed,” he went
on. “I have just come from his Grace, and
he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom
like the great nobleman he is. He spoke of you
by name, Mr. Balfour, and declared his gratitude beforehand
in case you would be led by those who understand your
own interests and those of the country so much better
than yourself. Gratitude is no empty expression
in that mouth: experto crede. I daresay
you know something of my name and clan, and the damnable
example and lamented end of my late father, to say
nothing of my own errata. Well, I have made my
peace with that good Duke; he has intervened for me
with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my
foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility
shared into my hand of prosecuting King George’s
enemies and avenging the late daring and barefaced
insult to his Majesty.”

“Doubtless a proud position for your father’s
son,” says I.

He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. “You
are pleased to make experiments in the ironical, I
think,” said he. “But I am here upon
duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith,
it is in vain you think to divert me. And let
me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition
like yourself, a good shove in the beginning will
do more than ten years’ drudgery. The shove
is now at your command; choose what you will to be
advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the
affectionate disposition of a father.”

“I am thinking that I lack the docility of the
son,” says I.

“And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole
policy of this country is to be suffered to trip up
and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt of a boy?”
he cried. “This has been made a test case,
all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder
to the wheel. Look at me! Do you suppose
it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly
invidious position of prosecuting a man that I have
drawn the sword alongside of? The choice is not
left me.”

“But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice
when you mixed in with that unnatural rebellion,”
I remarked. “My case is happily otherwise;
I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King
George in the face without concern.”